"In order to understand these two truths, the ultimate and the conventional, they have to be approached through the different Buddhist traditions. It is difficult to understand them without approaching them in that way."

I can easy agree with this and it can bring us to see "created ideas" along investigation and analyses and go beyond the samenesses and no samenesses when the limited quality of imagined knowing is rolling into bursting in laughter.

I'm starting to think there is a middle path between ultimate and conventional reality.

A view can be constructed in which reality consists of processes involving objects that lack inherent existence, so you have only dependent arisings. But the processes are occurring therefore they exist, in a novel sense. Process without THINGS. Just causes and effects.

catmoon wrote:I'm starting to think there is a middle path between ultimate and conventional reality.

A view can be constructed in which reality consists of processes involving objects that lack inherent existence, so you have only dependent arisings. But the processes are occurring therefore they exist, in a novel sense. Process without THINGS. Just causes and effects.

*free from any classification or reference points* (mind comments, judgements)

Then phenomena are free and no fixations in materialistic views or clinging to a just nothingness-emptiness can delude us.

It is me told; in daily practice is it very helpful to be free from mental constructions, that's only like back ground music in a dream. Then interdependent phenomena cannot really harm or benefit our being.

things arnt really there, thats why they are dreamlike, like mist blown before wind.things arnt really not there either, thats why we taste the ice cream and enjoy the heat of a hot coffee.

they neither are, nor are not. if i say they are not i become frustrated because i have just enjoyed them. if i say they are... where have they gone, dust blown before the wind. dreamlike. so 'are' just will not do and 'are not' just will not do. this is on the level of experience.

i think there is really no separation between ultimate and conventional once one has seen the emptiness of all things. nonetheless, one probably should not focus to much on this emptiness, nor on its thisness, one should encounter these things when one encounters them and not seek to see them too often?

to often seek emptiness or thisness is to attach to emptiness or thisness.

when the masters have said... 'this' is it, or 'emptiness' is it they would warn about becomeing attached to these perceptions?

in the smaller prajna paramita sutra we are told to 'take your stand in emptiness' and that 'the buddha took his stand in no thing whatsoever'. emptiness is no thing whatsoever, do we make a stand in it? if we do, it becomes like an anchor and we surely loose our freedom? i just dont know. but am not taking a stand in emptiness, nor in thisness. emptiness is this, this is emptiness. not to attach to anything. to be free.

best wishes, White Lotus.

seeing emptiness,sometimes i have to turn away from it.touching this,why practice mindfulness.not to be attached to anything.emptying emptiness.

in any matters of importance. dont rely on me. i may not know what i am talking about. take what i say as mere speculation. i am not ordained. nor do i have a formal training. i do believe though that if i am wrong on any point. there are those on this site who i hope will quickly point out my mistakes.

Small correction. Beyond "really there" and "not really there"(appearance-emptiness), never coming or going = the Ultimate View through meditation, what Atisha meant with Entering the Two Truths.

Beings and phenomena are lacking both inherently existence, are interdependent. It is a complex relationship between many causes and conditions none of these truly solid exist (inherently-dependently).

Absolute Truth: ulitimate nature Conventional Truth: how phenomena appear. At the end of our journey we can be able to directly percieve and no disparity is between appaerances and nature. Then conceptual reasoning stops. So it is said.

Meanwhile, I think this helps as well to see how mind is deluding us by grasping to conceptual truths.

catmoon wrote:I'm starting to think there is a middle path between ultimate and conventional reality.

A view can be constructed in which reality consists of processes involving objects that lack inherent existence, so you have only dependent arisings. But the processes are occurring therefore they exist, in a novel sense. Process without THINGS. Just causes and effects.

If there's a view then it's conventional reality.

But the view described inherently denies conventional reality, by negating inherent existence!

catmoon wrote:I'm starting to think there is a middle path between ultimate and conventional reality.

A view can be constructed in which reality consists of processes involving objects that lack inherent existence, so you have only dependent arisings. But the processes are occurring therefore they exist, in a novel sense. Process without THINGS. Just causes and effects.

If there's a view then it's conventional reality.

But the view described inherently denies conventional reality, by negating inherent existence!

Oh dear. Classic.

Negating inherent existence is simply saying nothing exists from it's own side, nothing comes to be under it's own power, it is "empty" of self production etc. It's not saying there is no existence (conventional truth) whatsoever.

To see the dependency with all, a dream or mirage in which all is interdependent interconnected.

Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche gave an example:

When I was in Los Angeles I visited a film studio and went to look the film sets. Everything; houses, streets and so on were looking very real from the front. But then I walked behind the sets and I saw it wasn't so.

We visited a hospital set and saw doctors and nurses walking around like it was a real hospital. I was wearing my monk robes and one actor came to me and said: "Are you real?"

By looking so we are not so easy going to attach or solidify thoughts; emotions on "what appears in front of us".

The cat here gives me maybe another example. She sees in the mirror that thing appearing in front of her mind. She decides to look behind were that one is hiding her. But apart from the interconnection with her empty thinking-empty eyes and empty mirror, there is no any inherently existing cat-thing to discover.

catmoon wrote:I'm starting to think there is a middle path between ultimate and conventional reality.

A view can be constructed in which reality consists of processes involving objects that lack inherent existence, so you have only dependent arisings. But the processes are occurring therefore they exist, in a novel sense. Process without THINGS. Just causes and effects.

If there's a view then it's conventional reality.

But the view described inherently denies conventional reality, by negating inherent existence!

Examine with care the personal self and phenomena till there is some certainty of their inherently empty nature. Then there is no separation, with Conventional (in the illusionlike arising interdependence) and Absolute Truth (empty) anymore.

here is a good example of how conceptual thinking may point one in the right direction...

The Two Truths are essentially one.

fundamentally there is not truth, nor abscence of truth.not illusion, not reality.not emptiness, not form.

things are just as they are, not real, not empty.I think thats how i see it. i see emptiness when i look for it. emptiness is like the base on which the house is built... but when i am not looking for emptiness i see reality... though it is somewhat dreamlike.

i think its really hard to put these things into words... the middle approach seems to be the only one that works.

to totally negate all things as emptiness is resonable, but it denies their apparent reality... in the minds of most people.

i personally think that when discussing this issue one has to take a middle way, based on direct experience. this direct experience is flavoured by what one looks for. if you look for emptiness you find it. likewiese if you look for an ice cream, you enjoy it. it is too simplistic to take the approach of the heart sutra, and just say... no taste, no reality.

it is more specific to say... not taste, not tastelessnessnot real, not unreal.

thats like saying that emptiness is full of something (form). this approach takes two extremes and unites them in one.

ONE HAS TO TAKE A MIDDLE WAY, otherwise the extremes of ones experience are not met.

best wishes, White Lotus.

in any matters of importance. dont rely on me. i may not know what i am talking about. take what i say as mere speculation. i am not ordained. nor do i have a formal training. i do believe though that if i am wrong on any point. there are those on this site who i hope will quickly point out my mistakes.

Negating inherent existence is simply saying nothing exists from it's own side, nothing comes to be under it's own power, it is "empty" of self production etc. It's not saying there is no existence (conventional truth) whatsoever.